68 BLACK BUCK, 



was not too large, provided the bullet was well placed ; if in the 

 shoulders or hauiich there was much destruction and waste, but I ani 

 thankful to say that seldom occurred. 



I mentioned previously that one morning our commandant bagged two 

 without leaving the road, with a rifle I lent him ; that was the double 

 "500, and I often bagged two in the day with it, but never three ; of 

 course, any number may be shot, but only really good heads or remarkable 

 horns should tempt one to fire. If numbers were the object, I see no 

 reason why a good shot should not shoot a dozen any day in quite an 

 ordinary buck country, but I cannot condemn too strongly such waste 

 and wanton destruction. 



There is a most reprehensible practice followed by some would-be 

 sportsmen (sic); they take out a Government Martini and ammunition, 

 judge distance on bucks in large herds, at any distance up to five or six 

 hundred yards, and blaze away ; the result is heartrending, females with 

 young and fawns more often falling than the game aimed at, in addition 

 to which some unfortunate native receives a rude reminder of the 

 Feringhee's presence by the whistle of a heavy bullet, even if he does 

 not actually provide the billet for the unwelcome messenger. Nothing 

 can excuse the dangerous practice ; it is no use saying the Boers do it in 

 South Africa, for the simple reason that the country they shoot over is 

 uncultivated and hardly inhabited, with no cover to conceal a human 

 being from view except such as grass affords ; in India the buck is found 

 in the midst of fields and villages, and it takes a man all his time to get a 

 line free from natives, standing crops, and villages even with the light - 

 bulleted, and therefore comparative short-ranged, Express. Even the 

 shot-gun is dangerous in crops, for the native habit of squatting while 

 hoeing or working ground, causes his entire concealment, even in a 

 comparatively low one. 



To return to the sport, however. I turned out from one of our camps 

 near a large military cantonment, in a bullock- ecka, and drove straight 

 away from the Trunk-road for about a mile, until I found antelope in 

 some open scrub-jungle, with ruins interspersed. I dropped behind the 

 ecka, and examined a good many heads that were scattered about before 

 I found one that was good enough to justify my trying a shot. It was 

 a very black buck, lying down under a small tree, and I had to content 

 myself with a shot at 180 yards, as the others were moving about 

 uneasily. As a rule the best buck keeps quiet, lying down to the last, 

 and after a shot at a good one standing in a crop, a better has often 

 appeared bounding away, having been aroused by the report. 



I lay down with both elbows easily placed and had a fair shot behind 

 the shoulder, the ground being quite free of grass, and curving down- 

 wards slightly between us. On firing he never moved, then dropped his 

 head and rolled over ; on proceeding to have the " hallal " performed, I 

 found the bullet had hit just the edge of the shoulder, about 2 inches to 

 the left of where I had wished to place it. His horns were over eighteen 



